Washington: The United States confirmed it would not go forward with an already suspended deal to send food aid to North Korea, following Pyongyang's failed rocket launch.

"Their efforts to launch a missile clearly demonstrate that they could not be trusted to keep their commitments," US deputy national security advisor Ben Rhodes said aboard Air Force One.

"Therefore we are not going forward with an agreement to provide them with any assistance."It is impossible to see how we can move forward with the February agreement given the action they have taken."

The deal to provide food aid to impoverished North Koreans in return for a moratorium on missile launches had effectively been in limbo for weeks, as the Stalinist state made plans to launch the rocket.

Secretary of State Hillary Clinton also signaled that the food aid deal was off on Thursday ahead of the launch.

"In the current atmosphere, we would not be able to go forward with that, and other actions that other countries had been considering would also be on hold," she said.

Rhodes also said that Washington would look at additional sanctions against North Korea if it continued its provocations. And he admitted that Washington was concerned that Pyongyang was prone to "provocative" patterns of behavior including missile tests and other challenges to the international community.

Following the failed rocket test, some experts have said that young leader Kim Jong-Un may now feel extra pressure to demonstrate the hermit state's prestige with a new nuclear test.